One of the greatest gifts my brother and I received from my mother was her love of literature and language. With their boundless energy, libraries open the door to these worlds and so many others. I urge young and old alike to embrace all that libraries have to offer.

And I found both literature and the church very dramatic presences in the world of the 1950s.

Literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disenfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts me out from the sweet, gracious discourses of my book friends. They talk to me without embarrassment or awkwardness.

What fascinated me mostly about Mickey Cohen was that he, in his later years, hired someone to help him to comprehend literature, to help him to read better, to understand words better.

Well, you sort of get out of the pool room, you get out of the Marine Corps, you get out and read some literature, you become involved with people who also want to know and are ready to share some ideas about literature and thoughts, and it becomes nourished that way.

The tradition of Russian literature is also an eastern tradition of learning poetry and prose by heart.

My writing is a combination of three elements. The first is travel: not travel like a tourist, but travel as exploration. The second is reading literature on the subject. The third is reflection.

Underground literature only began in the '70s, when technical developments made it possible. Before that, we were involved in a game with the censors. That was our struggle.

This is the most intimate relationship between literature and its readers: they treat the text as a part of themselves, as a possession.

When I read great literature, great drama, speeches, or sermons, I feel that the human mind has not achieved anything greater than the ability to share feelings and thoughts through language.

The concept of industry domination of regulatory agencies was well known and documented in the literature by the 1960s.

More than art, more than literature, music is universally accessible.

Literature is a state of culture, poetry is a state of grace, before and after culture.

The thing that teases the mind over and over for years, and at last gets itself put down rightly on paper - whether little or great, it belongs to Literature.

During half a century of literary work, I have endeavoured to introduce the philosophy of evolution into the sphere of literature, and to inspire my readers to think in evolutionary terms.